YP Letters: Ditch bosses to sort out NHS deficit

Regarding your article about the NHS deficit, one way to solve it is to get rid of all the managers in all departments, which will not be popular!

As it is, they are the bugbear of the NHS. They are the ones that have reduced the basic staffing levels and pay, whilst they lord it up. We never see their side being cut up.

Get back to the basic of nursing and let the matrons and sisters do the management off the hospital, the nurses doing basic running of the wards and the rest to the doctors and surgeons for administering, with a few secretaries for appointments, bookings etc. We don’t need managers or under-managers to manage every section of the NHS.

My sister, who is now 70, would say the same thing, having been a sister of a ward at a very young age.

Fracking is indefensible

David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York.

Thank you for your continuing coverage of fracking.

“I remain supportive of shale gas extraction so long as regulations are in place to protect both our environment and our countryside. If this does not happen, then I will call for a moratorium.” So said MP Kevin Hollinrake in his July press release.

Mr Hollinrake knows that such regulations as there are likely to be are already in place or, in the case of the Joint Minerals and Waste Plan, proposed after slight revision, and purport to protect as he says. This is his let-out clause. He will not feel it necessary therefore to call for a moratorium. Will he reconsider if the said regulations are credibly considered inadequate?

Last November the Climate Change Commission pointed out that large-scale fracking could only be compatible with the UK’s climate change targets if three conditions were met. They have not been met.

The 2012 Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering ten regulatory recommendations for UK shale gas extraction have, with one exception, not been met.

Mr Hollinrake relies upon ten regulatory provisions in his defence of fracking. These have been systematically demolished by engineer Mike Hill, once a potential fracker but now emphatically opposed to fracking.

Last October, researchers at Stirling University concluded that “the evidence base for robust regulation and good industry practice is currently absent” and that “the evidence from peer-reviewed papers suggests fracking in the UK will not be effectively regulated”. The report affirms that “peer-reviewed public health literature... already identifies significant hazards and major potential risks from the industry”.

On July 17, Food & Water Watch in its submission to Rotherham planners commented: “Even strict regulation of fracking cannot prevent these (social, community and health) impacts... these harms are inherent.” Elsewhere, Food & Water Europe, the same organisation, commented: “Fracking is inherently unsafe, cannot be regulated and should be banned.”

Perhaps not a ban, yet, Mr Hollinrake, merely the moratorium you promised while the Government conducts some meaningful independent research.

A rail insult to Yorkshire

Roger Backhouse, Upper Poppleton, York.

The decision to scrap plans to electrify railways to Sheffield and further delay a Trans Pennine upgrade is not only an insult to Yorkshire but an engineering nonsense.

For many years Department of Transport civil servants have had a deep-rooted opposition to further electrification. Gone are the days when under a Conservative government British Rail electrified the East Coast, Norwich and Kings Lynn main lines most successfully.

Electric railways offer higher speeds, lower train maintenance costs and greater energy efficiency. It is surely a wise investment to follow that success with further electrification.

Alas, the Department of Transport did not see it that way. Their civil servant Stuart Baker dreamed up the bi-mode train- carrying diesel engines to use on non-electrified track sections. That gave ministers the excuse to phase out plans for further overhead wires even for the modest 30 miles between Selby and Hull.

Bi-mode trains are heavier, much more expensive, cost more to maintain and are far less energy efficient with extra engine weight to haul around. A heavier train cannot give the truly high-speed service that Yorkshire and the wider North deserves.

And isn’t it strange that with Department of Health concerns about diesel engine pollution the Government is proposing to maintain their use on railways? Co-ordination between departments clearly isn’t the Government’s strong point.

Rachael Maskell has done right to criticise the minister’s decision. This should be a matter where MPs of all parties join to challenge the Government.

Not so smart to use phone

Allan Ramsay, Radcliffe.

While cycling to make a right turn, on Deansgate, Manchester, a convertible came up my inside. Stopped at the lights, the driver started “playing” with his smartphone.

The six-point penalty for driving whilst using a mobile clearly isn’t working. If one paracetamol doesn’t kill the pain, we take two. The “dose” for driving whilst using a mobile surely needs increasing to an outright ban – the same as for drink/drug-driving.

Also, head-cam footage of drivers using mobile phones, from cyclists and motorbikers, (in the “firing line”), should unquestionably secure a driving ban. Lawless drivers are a cancer.